Your math is accurate, though I don't know of any birth defect with 20% prevalence. Birth defects affect 3% of all babies born in the US, accounting for 20% of infant deaths. (See https://www.marchofdimes.org/materials/global-report-on-birth-defects-the-hidden-toll-of-dying-and-disabled-children-appendix-b.pdf . Were you thinking of some other subpopulation?) In any case, at 3% prevalence, the positive predictive value of a screen with 95% sensitivity and 95% specificity is actually worse than in your example. I know of no such screen, however.

Left out of the Science News article was the notion of the odds ratio. Though the odds of illegal drug use based on a positive test result are 19:19, the odds of illegal drug use based on a negative test result are 1:361, so a positive test makes the odds of illegal drug use 361 times higher than a negative result. A positive result strongly indicates the need for further testing.

In a way, it's like the difference between absolute risk and relative risk. You might be interested in http://www.thennt.com/thennt-explained/ .

I have to admit I am one of those that would live partly in ignorance as I find paranoia and fear so debilitating.

I have a serious problem with Linkedin for example (which is why I used it, as an example). I don't see why we have to use it as a means to network, and why you're considered almost incompetent, at least within my field, if you don't have a linkedin profile. It's rubbish.
But as with most things like this the longer you refuse to join the more you seem like the 'odd one out', and unless you're independently wealthy or an artist eventually you have to join the crew.

But I hate it.

I found myself swearing through that whole article 'screening-test-math'. One swear word in particular. It ends in ckkkkk.

I'm not a fan of basing decisions on screening tests, due to the inherent risk, especially with things like screening for birth defects in unborn children, but when you throw the Math into it, as they've done in that article, it blows the whole thing to pieces.

So if a test for a birth defect (this has nothing to do with the OP but it's the first thing that came to mind when I read 'screening') is 95% accurate, and there's a 20% chance of the birth defect occurring in the unborn child being tested, the probability of the child identified as having the birth defect, actually having the birth defect, is 82%, which is wayyy less than the 95% accuracy figure.

So that means there's an almost 20% chance that a perfectly healthy child (assuming absence of the tested birth defect = perfectly healthy) could be recommended for abortion on the basis of the screening test.

ATM skimmers are now widespread. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll4f0Wim4pM .) As with electronic dating, there are strategies that reduce your risk (never to zero) without having to entirely give up the convenience of your ATM card. Same with your phone and, increasingly, with your car. (See https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/03/24/car-spying-edr-data-privacy/1991751/ .) We can't protect ourselves from every bad actor, but we can empower regulators. We can't avoid all of our own regretable choices, but we can avail ourselves of information services that help us make better choices. And, of course, there are behaviors that we can learn (e.g., don't click on unfamiliar links.) Most people, though, are oblivious to risk. They are dismissive of risk because they believe the alternative is paranoia. Calibrating one's own tolerance for risk is something that should be taught in grade school. Almost no one knows how to do this. (See https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/doctors-flunk-quiz-screening-test-math .) It affects health choices, financial choices and much more. It is an alternative to living in ignorance or living in fear.

You know partly why I'm not too worked up about this? It's because, it feels like old news. I mean we all saw this coming, fidn't we?

I find it somewhat, frustrating, sometimes that things that are so obvious, and should be acted on at a much earlier stage only become news long after the damage. Like it's too late, the horses have left the building. What did we THINK was going to happen? I wish people had more foresight.

A friend of mine once told me, I think it was around the time where there a few scandals about politicians in the UK, that she had received a dick pic from someone and she thought it was private because it was sent to her email and she didn't see what the problem. And I said noooo, nothing you send online is private. Nothing. And we have to accept that. It is the price we pay for being online. You can't have it all. You can't expect to be able to exchange messages in real time with someone you can't see can't hear in another continent and still expect the same level of privacy and control as if you were sitting in front of them having an in person conversation you can't have it both ways. We've all forgottem what it was like before the internet having private conversations. Do we want to go back, to phone calls and letters? We couldn't if we wanted to. There's always a price to be paid for a convenience we can't control everything while at the same time having increased convenience. The next thing will be, I imagine, something around the data connected to online banking or how we're all walking around with cards that now allow us to pay for stuff just by swiping them on a reader. What's to stop someone from just developing a reader and going around and taking money from people's cards. It's go-ing to happen. Just like facebook data being used to manipulate our choices was always going to happen, and everyone acts so shocked and offended. What did you THINK was going to happen?

I just find it so tiring.

I'm with you though. You should get to choose who comes into your 'home' and when. I'm not so bothered about how the how much, as I'm more bothered about the privacy of my data, than the value of my data, but I get that too.

Good thoughts. I think LLPersona can be structured not to protect anyone from criminal prosecution. Law enforcement (with a warrant) generally get to "break the glass" to get access to full ID, Also health care providers, in the event of an emergency.

My point is that the bad guys have all of our data now. For the same reason as you wouldn't choose to have that first coffee date at your own house, you ought to get to choose the time and place to reveal the details of your life.

Multiple persona does permit someone to be one person in one place and another person somewhere else. In a legal sense, anyone who sets up a Subchapter S corporation or an LLP is doing that now, as you note. There will always be grifters in this world, but one service that the "bank" might provide would be validation of the limited information that it does reveal (e.g., college degree, no criminal history, etc.) when so instructed.

I think I like the idea of a virtual personality, which is essentially what a limited liabIlity persona is (?), for more detached intetactions, or forums where interpersonal connectedness is of little or no importance. Such as on jobsites such as linkedin. I don't see why on a jobsite one needs to have a photo and other personal details such as location and past employers. As you're essentially telling people your life (where you are, who you work(ed) for).

The onlyyy thing I don't like about a LLP, is the same reason I don't like LLPs (and LLCs, and private/public companies) in real life, the removal of the person or people, from accountability of the actions of 'the company', or in this case 'the persona'. I'm not sure I like that increased level of detachment. I can see it being taken advantage of in other ways. People creating multiple identies, essentially splitting their lives into different 'parts', so you can be one person in one place and another person in another place and no one ever really knows who you are. People would no longer be criminally liable but civilly liable, for behaviour that is essentially criminal. I'm not particularly excited by anything that increases our level of detachment from our actions online, even if it mayyyy lead to a decrease in the risk of our data being mined for specific purposes.

Yes. I figured that. And wondered why everybody else wasn't as aware and being more careful. Like why do people instal apps that request access to all of their contacts etc without even thinking. You wouldn't even do that with your best friend! If your best friend walked up to you and said, can I have the names and numbers of everyone you know you'd think what, no way!

What you've described reminds me of what I read they do in Estonia. Unfortunately US (and UK and other) based data giants don't have the scruples of Estonia.

It's not about avoiding risk. Really, it's only about calibrating risk. Third parties have been collating data for decades, and they've (we've) gotten very good at it. If you use the same photo on two unrelated sites, whatever other information you have offered at both sites will be collated. Then, something on each of those sites (e.g., a username) gets collated with yet more "unrelated" stuff. The matching becomes probabilistic, but that doesn't stop anyone, and they've gotten very good at it. The third parties are then hired to evaluate job applications, credit applications, insurance applications and more. (This goes on a lot. It's all mainstream by now. I've got citations, of course, if you are interested.)

As to the monetary value of your data... People already pay a lot for it. You're just not seeing any of the profits.

One thing about the Limitied Liability Persona is that you can create many different ones (like usernames,) each one for a specific purpose. The difference is that you own the data and it is being professionally managed by an organization (e.g., "bank") that can be federally regulated.

I'm not disagreeing with the premise of your post just that thinking in that way defies the very purpose of me being on this site - to connect with people. It's like if you want a job you don't think, ohmygod, how many people are going to see my CV, you just send the CV. Coz the goal is to get the job.

Hmmm, my attitude is, share what you're willing to risk sharing. I don't really see my data as a 'thing of value'. As that would imply attaching value (quantifiable) to my identity. Everytime I share something I always think how do I feel about this thing being used in this way or that way. If I am comfiortable with all the possibilities I share it, if I'm not, I don't. Like I don't mind sharing a photo. People would see what you look like in person anyway. But not everyone that knows me knows my date of birth. So that's not something I would share. I think we have to take a certain amount of risk to get a reward. You can't dip only one foot in a pool and expect to be able to learn to swim. Or wear a body suit and a mask and expect other people to engage with you the way they would if they could see you. That just, defies logic. So if the goal is to engage one has to let some things go, within reason.

Facebook is in a tailspin lately due to emerging evidence that Cambridge Analytica improperly harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users and collated these with [Big Five] personality profiles, voter registration data and more. ( https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html .) This should give all of us some concern about what we share on this and other social networking sites. (Photos as well as names, birth dates, etc. are fully identifying. Screen-scraping is easy. See https://medschool.duke.edu/research/clinical-and-translational-research/duke-office-clinical-research/irb-and-institutional-14 .)

On the other hand, much of the value of these sites accrues from the size of their user pools, and we often bemoan the lack of interest and/or activity here at projectevolove.

What's the answer? One that I like (that never seems to have gotten off the ground) is for people to start using Limited Liability Personae. (See https://equalsdrummond.name/2006/09/13/the-limited-liability-persona-llp/ .) Identity brokers could be set up to validate, confirm, store and – only with explicit permission or in cases of emergency – disclose full ID.

Collated and de-identified data are extraordinarily valuable for health research, marketing research and more. If individuals were given a way to control it, we could “bank” it and license access in a competitive market. That would cover the administrative costs and pay dividends to depositors. And, the more quizzes you answer, the more valuable your data become.

I agree! Though I definitely think there is a potential for people to use protests/activist spaces to express support that is performative without wanting to actualize those ideals. Activism in itself has and can become commodified, unfortunately. And because of this people might use it to increase their social capital. That's their prerogative, of course, and to an extent, everybody does this without intending to. It's something to think about. I still want to involve myself in those spaces, of course, I can't deny the impact it's had.

Lately I've been having some discussions with a few friends about the power of protest, the importance of activism and the necessity of action. The more I talk about this topic, the more I feel that there really is no clear cut answer when it concerns finding your role. Does everyone need to participate in activism? Does being neutral make you a contributor? Well, in theory, yes. However, lately I've been more focused on the idea that we all have our own talents, and our own natural inclinations. Not everyones protest needs to look the same. Not everyone needs to go out onto the streets and participate in person, not everyone needs to write regular posts countering oppression, and not everyone needs to run fundraising events. I have at least a couple of friends who have literally been the rose that grew from concrete, growing out of poverty despite their socioeconomic conditions. These same friends will be the first to to say that "If I can make it, no one has an excuse. And protest isn't whats going to solve it". But it is. Protest, the posts, the kneeling, the hashtags, the articles, the petitions. Actually, every bit contributes to the eradication of oppression. But we can't all be jacks of all trades. We have our own individual strengths, some of us are story tellers, some of us are healers, some of us are warriors, etc. Forget the guilt of not doing enough, focus on what makes sense for you and your personal power.

Please do not comment if your views are radically different. If you do not agree with the basic concept of fighting oppression, you need to keep it moving as it will just be a waste of time - and personal time is precious for new moms ;) All others, you're welcome to contribute.

Well, it took me several days and a lot of code writing to sift through the millions of achieved pages on the Wayback Machine achieves. Was about to give up when a colleague gave me mining script to look at all archived pages whether displayed or not. And lord and behold jackpot, here she is!

Melanija Knavs, was born in 1970 in Yugoslavia, now know as Slovenia. Knavs studied design and architecture at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. She then worked as a model for fashion houses in Milan and Paris before relocating to New York City in 1996.

After moving to New York City , Knavs supposedly met Donald Trump at a Fashion Week party in New York City in September 1998. Their relationship gained attention after a 1999 interview on The Howard Stern Show, and additional publicity after the 2004 launch of Trump's successful business-oriented reality television show, The Apprentice. Donald Trump described their long courtship in 2005: "We literally have never had an argument, forget about the word 'fight' . We just are very compatible. We get along."
After becoming engaged in 2004, Donald Trump and Melania Knavs were married on January 22, 2005, at The Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception in the 17,000-sq.-ft ballroom at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

Trump has always stated he met his wife Melanija at a fashion week party in 1998. But Anna Novak a matchmaker who operated an office in Slovenia for several "Mail Order Bride" companies, including a company called A Foreign Affair, says she received a call sometime around 1995 from the head office to help arrange a call between a female member Melanija, and A VIP client she only knew as Donald. Shortly after the call, Melanija asked to be removed as a member and to have her profile completely removed from the websites.

If this was truly "The Donald" and the "Melanija" then why the secrecy? Trump was married at the time, even when they met each at the Fashion Week party. It is not a secret that Trump has had a long history of infidelity, When married to his first wife, Czech model Ivana Zelní Ková, he had an affair with actress Marla Maples, In 1992 Ivana's and Donald's divorce was finalized, shortly thereafter Donald sued Ivana for $25 million, alleging she was not honoring a gag clause in their divorce agreement by disclosing facts about him. Maples and Donald were married the following year after his first divorce on December 20, 1993. The couple's divorce finalized in June 1999, nearly one year after the Fashion Week party where supposedly Donald met Melanija for the first time.

A spoke's person for A Foreign Affair' in Phoenix AZ, says. "We have a strict confidentiality policy so we can not make any comments about any member or client." They did admit they do help many rich and or famous clients find love overseas.

Three quick comments, as the previous poster was kind enough to pump this review.

1. "The seeds of freedom" may have been sown in China via opening up to the world, but they did not emerge from the Tiananmen massacre, which was a movement confined to Beijing, found no echo in the rest of the country, and about which the Chinese for a generation had no memory because of information suppression.

2. The post-Maoist consensus in China, whatever claptrap they may say about "socialism with Chinese characteristics," created a "haves" vs "have-nots" cleavage far in excess of anything which existed in the Maoist era, when everyone was equally poor.

3. I cannot see anything but disaster were China to adopt Western political models. Russia's political system would probably be more suitable for Chinese imitation.

That was quite a write up. I realize its an old post but.. Meanwhile our own government the "Progressive movement" both Democrats & establishment Republicans are deceiving "we the people" the voters. And systematically regressing our own country and civil society away from the Judaeo Christian God given individual rights based law of the US Constitution, into the 10 planks of communism based Marxist Socialism. Recently marketed to Bernie Sanders supporters as Democratic Socialism.

Obama said in 08 we are going to "fundamentally transform America" and the unwitting and deceived voter cheered. Our government is working to be our God. Equality is a lie that is used by government to gather the votes & support of the dis informed to gather power and control over we the people the citizens. Opportunity, freedom OF religion, a free non government controlled market or Capitalism are main reasons why people flee Socialist countries to come here. This Utopian state they paint has no choice but to become a tyrannical police state. In order to save & restore our civil society and keep our grandchildren from being controlled and lorded over by an all powerful government such as has and is happening around the world and through history. ie USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba, and most recently Venezuela. I know that can be broken down but follow the concept and look what they do to their "citizens." Consider these.

1. Replace our politicians with Constitutional Conservatives & Conservatarians. As they actually represent us & law not Mob supported government rule. They are few in government and oppressed by establishment. The best bumper sticker I have seen is; "Re-elect (almost) no one." From the people we must also find more to step up and run for office. And while this needs to be done unfortunately we are past the point of this being enough to restore proper government.

2. Our government has become too big sick and evil to fix itself and we cannot re-take it by the force of a war type of revolution. (although all dictatorships disarm their "citizens.") The only legal way to take back our government is found in the US Constitution under article V. It was put their specifically by our founders for the purpose of we the people the law abiding citizens of the local communities that make up the individual states to be able to make changes to federal law where existing federal government has to adhere. It requires majority voting on proposed changes in the states and then a convention of states where 34 states agree to make a federal rule or law change. Existing federal politicians don't want to risk their power and control and resist by saying we could have a run a way convention. We already have a run a way government so.. An example change that is universally supported by voters is enacting term limits on politicians to get the old entrenched corrupt politicians out. You can see where they would never propose let alone allow that to be placed upon themselves. Check out www.conventionofstates.com

3. We must self educate and make aware everyone we can. Most of us are largely unaware what is being done to us and would not become aware until it is too late. The "progressive" movement a world wide push by the globalist mega powers that be are behind this. So we the unwitting citizens are being manipulated badly by almost all national media, Hollywood, colleges and now even down into our local schools by government.